Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

FSF Helps Launch Autonomo.us To Focus On Freedom In Network Services

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the save-the-intartubez-bumper-stickers-coming-soon dept.

mako writes "The FSF just announced the results of a meeting it held on software freedom and network services. They are hailing the launch of a new group called Autonomo.us to follow up on these issues and the publication of the Franklin Street Statement on Freedom and Network Services which lays out a set of recommendations and guidelines for protecting freedom for software as a service." Update 22:07 GMT by SM: Corrected language incorrectly crediting FSF with creating Autonomo.us.

45 comments

  1. Inaccurate. by byolinux · · Score: 4, Informative

    This group is seperate from the FSF.

    The FSF news story explains that.

    --
    Join the Free Software Foundation
    1. Re:Inaccurate. by owlnation · · Score: 5, Funny

      This group is seperate from the FSF.

      So it's autonomous then?

    2. Re:Inaccurate. by byolinux · · Score: 1

      Yeah.

      The Firehose story is more accurate.

      --
      Join the Free Software Foundation
    3. Re:Inaccurate. by Red+Flayer · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      Whoosh!

      --
      "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
    4. Re:Inaccurate. by VoyagerRadio · · Score: 1

      I take it back, then. Autonomo.us is a perfect name.

      --
      Harold
  2. Sooo... by oneal13rru · · Score: 4, Funny

    Since Network Services are now Free, my packets are insisting I ask if anyone can give them advice on how to unionize... they have T-shirts...

    --
    Never disregard the raw power inherent to stupidity... they call it "dumb luck" for a reason...
    1. Re:Sooo... by VoyagerRadio · · Score: 1

      I don't know anything about Network Services, but I sure wish they'd speed up these Tubes!

      --
      Harold
    2. Re:Sooo... by oneal13rru · · Score: 2, Funny

      Meh, try Ex-Lax. Always speeds up my tubes.

      --
      Never disregard the raw power inherent to stupidity... they call it "dumb luck" for a reason...
  3. is fsf going to fix their web site first? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Big images used for text? Wtf?

    1. Re:is fsf going to fix their web site first? by Darkness404 · · Score: 1

      How is that broken? Loads of sites use that rather then using text. And honestly, anyone who isn't using Lynx can see the images just fine. I fail to see how using images suddenly breaks a website.

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    2. Re:is fsf going to fix their web site first? by byolinux · · Score: 1

      Try turning off CSS is your browser - you'll notice that there's a perfect text version supplied.

      --
      Join the Free Software Foundation
    3. Re:is fsf going to fix their web site first? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      How is that broken?

      Drag your mouse over the text to highlight some, so that you can copy it to your clipboard. No worky. Also, notice that a few bytes of text loads faster than image.

      They went to some trouble to make the text still really be there; the images are all loaded by the stylesheet to replace the text. So it's not quite as bad as, say, a typical flash site. But it's still really stupid, and in an unnecessary way. Imagine they had not done this image stuff: the website would be just as good, except also better, with no downside.

      Loads of sites use that rather then using text.

      Now that I think of it, that's a really good justification. You should write RMS and tell him that loads of people use proprietary software. He'll be relieved to learn that, since a lot of people do it, it must not really self-defeating.

    4. Re:is fsf going to fix their web site first? by Darkness404 · · Score: 1

      They went to some trouble to make the text still really be there; the images are all loaded by the stylesheet to replace the text. So it's not quite as bad as, say, a typical flash site. But it's still really stupid, and in an unnecessary way. Imagine they had not done this image stuff: the website would be just as good, except also better, with no downside. .

      Except you know that the fonts are rendered 100% perfectly.

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    5. Re:is fsf going to fix their web site first? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You do realise that, if HTML's goal was as you imply, every web page would be a big client-side imagemap?

      One of HTML's main goals is graceful degradation. "Imagemap or plaintext" is not graceful. The page could easily be designed with CSS so it is pleasant for the IE7 user, the Safari user, the Firefox user, the iPhone user, the Lynx user and the user with bad/no eyesight.

      And readers could copy&paste the text... I hear being able to easily retrieve and edit raw material is kinda a big thing for the FSF.

    6. Re:is fsf going to fix their web site first? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Actually, no, you don't. If the user has a screen bigger or higher res than you expect, then the fonts are rendered incredibly small and unreadable. If the user had a screen smaller or lower res than you expect, then the fonts are rendered large and pixellated. And if the user's RGB subpixels aren't the physically laid out as you predict (i.e. he's using a CRT when you expect an LCD, or using an LCD when you expect CRT), then your sub-pixel anti-aliasing is wrong too, and makes it even harder to read.

      If, on the other hand, you send the text instead of the graphics, then you know that the browser will render it in exactly the manner that the user has told his computer that he prefers, and with far greater chances of being configured for the actual hardware present, and best of all: it will render just like everything else that the user looks at all the time. In other words: perfectly, with no surprises at all.

    7. Re:is fsf going to fix their web site first? by tietokone-olmi · · Score: 1

      This only applies to a single resolution. So on a zomg-hueg resolution what you see is a nutshell on top of a football, a postage stamp in the middle of an A4 sheet.

      I remember back in the nineties when scalability across resolutions was a desirable goal of web design. I guess it didn't stick.

    8. Re:is fsf going to fix their web site first? by narthollis · · Score: 1

      You are correct - most modern web browsers will view images fine. However screen readers and other accessibility programs can't - admittedly they should read the 'alt' text instead, but a quick look at the FSF website doesn't show any alt attributes for there nice paragraph images...

  4. Good domain name by nine-times · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This may be a bit off-topic, but my initial response to the headline was, "That's pretty clever, but I'm surprised someone hadn't already registered it." It seems like every word ending with a "us" got bought a while back when people first figured that whole thing out.

    So out of curiousity, I went looking to see what was at some of those websites. They're all ad pages-- nothing is at any of them, really. It's a sad state of affairs with DNS that there has been such a land-grab and so many domains are taken by people whose only intention is to put up some filler ad pages in the hopes that someone might happen along.

    Eh, anyway, it's nice to see someone got ahold of one and are using it for something.

    1. Re:Good domain name by VoyagerRadio · · Score: 1

      Better domain names are just around the corner -- the ICANN is about to release just about any "dot" you can think of. Once that happens, domains like .us will be forgotten quickly, replaced by more memorable names. (Like .coke, .pepsi, et cetera.)

      --
      Harold
    2. Re:Good domain name by mccabem · · Score: 1

      Speculators are a part of every emerging market or trend and are almost never healthy but oddly may be necessary to an extent. I think our economy may actually count on the "almost never" faction...nice for the gamblers out there, eh? I suppose most of those end up getting taken by bigger speculators, and only a scant few of the big ones turn out to be legitimate and/or successful businesses -- almost everyone loses. This trend goes waaaay back and is very broad.

      -Matt

    3. Re:Good domain name by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Think of them as tumbleweed.

    4. Re:Good domain name by nine-times · · Score: 1

      The question there is, will that help wit this problem, or will it just bring about another land-grab?

  5. The title I submitted was accurate. by makohill · · Score: 1

    The editor changed it and it's no longer strictly true. Apparently, someone from the FSF has mailed about this.

  6. You mean domain squatters? by WiglyWorm · · Score: 3, Informative

    They're not "taken by people whose only intention is to put up some filler ad pages in the hopes that someone might happen along."

    They're there simply to sell for a profit in case someone wants to come along and use that name. It's a big business, right up there with buying potential misspellings of popular domains and putting up ads for their competitors.

    1. Re:You mean domain squatters? by nine-times · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I know. I just mean that the only content they put up are some ugly ad pages, and they have no intention of doing anything else with the domain (as far as putting up content).

      And yes, it's all big business. But it kind of stinks that the DNS system has been abused in this way. I'm not sure what you do about that-- but anyway, like I said, this is all off-topic. I just think it's kind of sad that when I see the headline, "FSF Helps Launch Autonomo.us To Focus On Freedom In Network Services", my first thought is, "Wow, you mean Autonomo.us wasn't already taken by someone with no intention of using it?"

  7. Great goals; less than great name by VoyagerRadio · · Score: 1

    Great goals, but why'd they have to go and name it something you know the morons aren't going to be able to spell? (To keep the morons out, perhaps?)

    --
    Harold
    1. Re:Great goals; less than great name by byolinux · · Score: 1

      Autonomous isn't that hard to spell.

      And there's a link from fsf.org - so, I think even the morons as you call them will be able to spell that.

      --
      Join the Free Software Foundation
    2. Re:Great goals; less than great name by VoyagerRadio · · Score: 1

      I guess I never thought the use of ".us" was all that clever. Either that or I'm sore I didn't think of it first!

      --
      Harold
  8. Reverse Psychology by postbigbang · · Score: 2, Funny

    Up to this point, there hasn't been a single Anonymous Coward to post on a thread that's about anonymo.us

    Splendid!

    --
    ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
    1. Re:Reverse Psychology by smoker2 · · Score: 1

      Should've gone to specsavers mate !

    2. Re:Reverse Psychology by EonBlueTooL · · Score: 1

      That actually says:

      Autonomo.us

  9. GNU/Blinux? by tepples · · Score: 1

    And honestly, anyone who isn't using Lynx can see the images just fine. I fail to see how using images suddenly breaks a website.

    What web browser is better than Lynx, w3m, or Links for people who are blind or hard of sight, such as people who use GNU/Blinux?

    1. Re:GNU/Blinux? by tietokone-olmi · · Score: 1

      They do have alt attributes in their image tags, you know. That makes all the difference in the world for sight-restricted people.

  10. Here we go again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What the FSF needs to realize is that only a fraction of 1 percent of the users of popular (as in popular culture, i.e. YouTube, MySpace, Facebook -- not SourceForge) web services would even want to look at the source code driving those sites, much less modify it or run the services themselves. So when the FSF makes a big deal out of "freeing" these services, what they mean is that developers want this, not "users", and I believe they should drop the pretense (or subterfuge, depending on how you interpret their motives) and just state this.

    1. Re:Here we go again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      The FSF has been a double-edged sword to the software community for a while.

      They help devs who want their work to be no-compensation usable-by-almost-anyone stuff.

      And they totally fuck over those using a BSD license (not that anyone using a BSD license didn't know the risks), and they're causing serious trouble using otherwise good software in corporate environments.

  11. No, u by tietokone-olmi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Your mistake is in assuming that the user is a passive consumer. This would seem to be just your conforming to the ideas pushed by the proprietary software industry, which has sought for the past four decades to make the users of their products as passive and helpless as possible.

    Your other mistake is in assuming that because far less than one percent of users make noises about wanting to modify the source code of whatever, that 99% don't want to.

    The interesting thing is, though: why would you want the FSF to not make noises about things like this? Would you perhaps like all users to be passive and helpless? Or is this an "open source"-like compromise proposal, where the FSF makes exceptions to their principles in exchange of vaguely defined and ultimately useless "credibility".

    1. Re:No, u by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Your mistake is in assuming that the user is a passive consumer. This would seem to be just your conforming to the ideas pushed by the proprietary software industry, which has sought for the past four decades to make the users of their products as passive and helpless as possible.

      On the contrary, I believe that users of the popular so-called Web 2.0 web services (the services mainly being targeted by this "freedom" campaign) are indeed active, not passive consumers; they upload videos and pictures, form groups, engage in discussions, campaigns, etc. They use these services, and thereby give the services their usage (as opposed to development) value.

      Where I differ from the FSF's position is that I don't extend the definition of "user" to mean "developer" or "potential developer". Developers are usually also users, but users are rarely also developers. You know darn well that the average user of Flickr or Facebook for instance would never bother learning how to code to make even the most minor changes to the service on a programmatic level, and they certainly won't purchase expensive web hosting to host these services for themselves and their friends (and most assuredly not on a commercial scale). Developers do such things, not users. So in the context of making web services open and free, let's not redefine "user" and say this movement is about user freedom -- it's really about developer freedom. FSF is conflating "user" with "developer" to give this the appearance of a feel-good, socially justified, populist cause, when it's all about a few hackers being able to take advantage of someone else's code.

    2. Re:No, u by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I want you to change every instance of "Developer" to "Mathematician" or "Physicist". Once you have done that, change all instances of "Code", "Programming" and "Development" to "Mathematic Model" or "Physical Model". Once you have done that, re-read your entire statement. Then, and only then will you understand what the FSF is trying to accomplish with free software.

    3. Re:No, u by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I want you to change every instance of "Developer" to "Mathematician" or "Physicist". Once you have done that, change all instances of "Code", "Programming" and "Development" to "Mathematic Model" or "Physical Model". Once you have done that, re-read your entire statement. Then, and only then will you understand what the FSF is trying to accomplish with free software.

      Are you comparing the value of Einstein's theory of relativity or Newton's invention of calculus with the slopped-together blobs of code used to drive MySpace? If you listen to the FSF's sermons about web services, you might just get that notion stuck in your head. But for users of web services, most of whom have a less hacker-biased view of the world, that line of thinking is clearly hyperbole. Humanity doesn't need social networking services. We do, however, need to advance physics and mathematics, as they are the tools which form the basis for all technological progress. Being able to modify MySpace code to create relevant hyperlinks from a listing of Joe User's favorite rock bands isn't going to extend our lifespans or help us confront climate change.

      As an open source developer myself (the public domain being my preferred release vector), I don't see the relevance of your comparison. FOSS developers are perfectly free to create FOSS versions of MySpace and the like if they feel developmental "freedom" is so important to both developers and users. But when non-developer users choose among competing web services, most of them will not choose on the basis of whether the platform's codebase is "free" or "non-free". What matters to them is being able to use the software in a productive manner -- they don't have the time or inclination for code twiddling.

  12. New flash: not everyone thinks like a geek by ClosedSource · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So what you're saying is that despite the lack of any evidence that a significant percentage of users want to modify source code, it might still be true.

    I agree, it might, but given the fact that most users don't have the technical skill to modify code and there's no evidence that they wish to start hiring software consultants, I'd say the more probable truth is that they don't care.

    1. Re:New flash: not everyone thinks like a geek by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think you are missing something, and that is that the ability to modify the source code is the means not the end. If you don't have this ability, then you are subject to vendor lock-in, which is something most people in businesses do understand irrespective of whether they are geeks. You have no second source (something else they understand). Something that may be critical to your ability to compete is under the control of a single external organisation (and you can bet they understand this one). It doesn't matter to a business that they can't modify the code, it matters that more than one company is competing to do it for them, giving them lower prices (something else they understand).

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    2. Re:New flash: not everyone thinks like a geek by ClosedSource · · Score: 1

      Of course you're assuming that the fact that an application is open source means it will be available and supported from different sources. This is not necessarily the case.

      Most software isn't mission critical for a business. If it is, it's more likely to be developed internally so that competitors won't have it available.

  13. In a related story... by The+Living+Fractal · · Score: 4, Funny

    Alaska based company Craptaculo.us is launching its website in a self-deprecating campaign against all websites which try to cleverly use the TLD suffix to create a new word. Craptaculo.us feels that del.icio.us is enough already, thank you.

    First on Craptaculo.us' radar are:

    http://fung.us/ - website about eating strange mushrooms and the wild tales that people share. eating mushrooms is bad.
    http://co.ck/ - needs no explanation
    http://gu.ru/ - complete lying bastards, they're not good at ANYTHING

    More to come.

    --
    I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
  14. This is a really good step... by mlinksva · · Score: 1

    Thanks to the FSF for supporting the summit that eventually led to Autonomo.us and the Franklin Street Statement, even if FSF isn't endorsing them yet. I'm really surprised at the near total lack of on topic comments on this post. Not even any generic anti-FSF flames or calling Autonomo.us luddite. So everyone agrees that this activity is a good thing? (I'm biased.)